A young, recently married woman was asking for advice about her relationship with her new husband. He has started spanking her if she “misbehaves, says something wrong, does something wrong, [or] hurts him in any way.” He will often continue until she cries, exhibits jealous tendencies, and displays inappropriate anger and rage. She justifies his actions by stating: “I respect him and know he’s the master of me as I married him.” It seemed to me to be a clear abusive situation, and expected to read as much in the comments.

I was surprised to find that many of the commenters were relating to the poster’s experience as fully consensual partners in something called Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD). I had never heard the term before, and figured it was a small sub-culture of people who enjoy googling the same weird shit that I do and then spreading their gospel on the message boards. Not so. I rapidly discovered that the proselytising of the CDD lifestyle is not restricted to Internet commenting alone. Blogs and websites abound written by and for women advocating this practice. Among the ones I visited were: Knowing Your Roles, Getting Spanked as Needed, and the cringe-inducing Putting Him First.

Not all couples who practice Domestic Discipline identify as Christian, but for the most part I get the sense that the underlying rationale is the same, whether it’s claiming to be based on the word of the bible or not. And I have no doubt that there are same-sex couples and polyamorous groups who practice Domestic Discipline, with a different determination of roles that is not gender based. [Rest.]